to: Tim Brink / Jim gaffney / Catie Scott

fr: Michael Oscar

dt: 6/8/2017

RE: CONGRESSIONAL UPDATE

This Week in Congress: Congress returned this week after a ten day Memorial Day Recess with immediate decisions regarding the Senate’s overhaul of the 2010 health care law. In the House, votes were taken on repealing the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation bill and the Volcker Rule, which bans speculative trading by consumer banks, rescinds the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s ability to intervene if financial institutions are failing, which eliminates the concept of “too big to fail,” among other regulatory rollbacks. Also, the House considered legislation that would allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to waive the mandatory administration of a lie-detector test to applicants for law enforcement jobs in the agency if they have previously worked in law enforcement or the armed services.

At the White House on Tuesday, President Trump and Republican leaders presented a unified front to rejuvenate his stalled legislative agenda including tax, healthcare, and infrastructure reform. We will continue to keep you updated as his agenda advances in Congress.

FBI DIRECTOR:President Trump has announced that he will nominate Christopher Wray as the next FBI Director. Wray, is a former Justice Department official who served as New Jersey Governor Christie’s lawyer during the George Washington Bridge lane-closing investigation. Wray served in a leadership role in the George W. Bush Justice Department, and headed the criminal division overseeing investigations into corporate fraud, during the time when Comey was deputy attorney general. Wray took charge of a task force of prosecutors and FBI agents created to investigate the Enron scandal.

NIH DIRECTOR: President Trump has decided to keep Francis Collins as director of the NIH. Collins is leading major HHS-wide initiatives into fighting cancer and neurological disorders and the precision medicine initiative. Collins led an international effort that sequenced the first human genome in 2003. After leading human genome research institute at NIH from 1993 to 2008, he took the helm at NIH and has been there since 2009.

FERC NOMINEES: On Tuesday with a vote 20-3, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced energy-related nominees for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which has jurisdiction over the Marcellus Shale and they areRobert Powelson, a Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission member, andNeil Chatterjee.

HEALTHCARE (June Vote?): Senate Majority Leader McConnell said he hoped to have a health care proposal ready in the “near future.” While McConnell and most other senators would not specify a timeline, several said they would try to get it done this month. Sen. Kennedy (R-LA) stated "the goal is to try to vote before the Fourth of July and we had a very detailed, substantive discussion about a bill.” Also, Sen.Cassidy (R-LA) cited a July 4th goal and told reporters “that leadership was already discussing aspects of the plan with the Congressional Budget Office even before members saw draft bill text.” The White House has been pressuring senators to eliminate rules requiring the health bill to stay within certain budgetary parameters. If they did that, the bill could include provisions that would potentially be more attractive to a wider swath of the caucus and allow them surpass 50 votes. However, when asked if Republicans were discussing overruling the Senate’s parliamentarian to achieve that goal, Senate Majority WhipCornyn simply said “no.”

APPROPRIATIONS:A move to quickly assemble and pass a fiscal 2018 omnibus spending bill appears to be gaining traction among some Republicans, including those who typically balk at the idea of passing a massive 12-bill appropriations package. The Appropriations panels have begun hearings on the fiscal 2018 budget requests from federal departments and agencies, but they cannot adopt those bills until there is a fiscal 2018 budget resolution. Without that document (or a deeming resolution) the Appropriations committees do not know how much money they will have to divide among the 12 spending bills. Also, the 1974 budget law allows the House to bring appropriations bills to the floor after May 15th even without a budget resolution or deeming resolution, but appropriators cannot write bills until they have top line numbers for each of the 12 subcommittees. A Senate GOP aide said the goal is to have the budget resolution adopted by Congress before the August recess, if possible. If that were to happen, the appropriation committees would have the August recess and four legislative weeks in September to move spending bills forward before fiscal 2018 begins October 1st.

Further complicating this year’s already delayed work is the return of Budget Control Act spending caps during the upcoming fiscal year. Without a bipartisan budget agreement, spending bills would have to be written to the $1.065 trillion discretionary cap. That would represent a $5 billion spending cut when compared with fiscal 2017 discretionary levels. That is something neither political party wants, but negotiations to avoid it have not begun. Sen.Shelby (R-AL) said he doubted Congress would be able to get spending bills enacted in time, suggesting a continuing resolution will once again be needed to keep the government funded past October 1st.

DEBT CELING: Congressional leadership and the White House will have to determine if they want to pass a clean debt ceiling bill or attach spending cuts to the legislative package. The issue is not only dividing Republicans in Congress, but also the administration. While Senator Mnuchin (D-WV) is urging a clean debt ceiling bill, OMB's Mulvaney has said spending cuts should be attached to the bill. Senator Shelby (R-AL) said he wants to see a debt ceiling bill that has spending cuts tied to it, but he did not appear confident that such a package would be able to get the bipartisan support needed to pass the Senate. The House GOP leaders declined to say whether President Trump shares Mnuchin’s call for a clean debt ceiling increase.

EARMARKS:Attempts to resurrect earmarks in the House appears unlikely to succeed any time soon. House Rules ChairmanPete Sessionssaid that his committee will not produce a report on earmarks for the House GOP conference by the Fourth of July recess, as was previously expected, but Sessions said he hoped to offer a recommendation by the end of the year.

NORTH AMERICAN SHALE GAS EXPLORATION:

·  Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Advances Energy-Related Nominees: On Tuesday with a vote 20-3, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced energy-related nominees for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which has jurisdiction over the Marcellus Shale and they areRobert Powelson, a Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission member, andNeil Chatterjee.

·  Environmentalists Challenge EPA’s Methane Rule Suspension in Court: On Monday, six environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its decision last week to suspend Obama-era rules designed to limit methane emissions from oil and natural gas production. The groups say the 90-day stay on the rules is illegal because the EPA did not give advance notice to the public nor did it request public comment as required by law.

·  EIA Predicts HUGE U.S. Oil Production in 2018: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects U.S. oil production to average 10 million barrels per day in 2018, breaking the previous record of 9.6 million barrels per day set in 1970. Meanwhile, the EIA revised down its 2017 forecast for dry natural gas production from 74.07 billion cubic feet per day to 73.3 billion cubic feet perday.

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